Pro-life groups question reliability of abortion report, point out contradictions

Washington D.C., May 5, 2006 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The
U.S. bishops’ pro-life office and Concerned Women for America each
commented on the Guttmacher report issued yesterday, titled “Abortion
in Women’s Lives,” pointing out inherent contradictions and raising
questions about its reliability.

“The report
tries to maintain an impossible balancing act: claiming the goal of
reducing abortions, while at the same time calling for more aggressive
promotion of abortion services,” said Deirdre McQuade, director of
planning and information at the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Pro-Life
Activities.

And while the
report claims that widespread access to contraception leads to lower
abortion rates, the report’s own data show there is no correlation
between the two, McQuade said.

“States ranking
highest for access to contraceptive services, including California and
New York, also rank highest in abortion rates,” McQuade noted. “Others
that Guttmacher considers weak in contraceptive services, such as
Kansas and the Dakotas, have among the lowest abortion rates in the
country.”

“Those states
have reduced their abortion rates, in part, by choosing not to
subsidize abortion, and ensuring informed consent for women and
parental involvement for minors seeking abortions – policies which the
Guttmacher report demands be rescinded,” she explained.

According to
Concerned Women for America (CWA), the report also attempts to deny the
increasing evidence that abortion harms women physically and
psychologically.

“A study by
Guttmacher Institute on abortion should be taken with as much
seriousness as a tobacco industry study on nicotine,” said CWA
president Wendy Wright. “True to form, Guttmacher asserts that abortion
is safe, then claims abortion providers have the solution for reducing
what it says is harmless.”

According to
Wright, a New Zealand study of 500 girls from birth to age 25 found a
definitive link between abortion and depression.

“Clearly,
abortion carries numerous medical risks— even death, as we have seen
with the abortion pill RU-486,” she said, urging women and policymakers
to read the report and recognize the research that reveals abortion is
a dangerous medical risk.

The report also
asserts that a woman with an unintended pregnancy should have the right
to decide whether or not she is ‘ready’ to be a mother,” said Wright.

“The fact is she
already is a mother; the question is whether she will be the mother of
a living child or a dead child. It is absurd to suggest that a human
being’s life is not worthwhile or valuable because the woman did not
pre-plan her pregnancy,” she stated.